News & Politics

Fom the Barrios of the Dominican Republic comes “Hasta Mañana,” a music video from Dominican Rapper, Vakero. The song is a love letter to the daily lives of Dominicans in the poorest areas in the island.

“Alberto Gonzales is resigning as U.S. attorney general, and here is what critics of all stripes are saying: He was blindly, brainlessly loyal to President Bush, gave atrocious advice, was an incompetent managerial mangler and klutzy in his own self-defense.

His legacy includes a Department of Justice that’s demoralized and in disarray, argue some detractors who also aver his mistakes have been grievous to the point of costing him any hope that history will someday trot to his reputation’s rescue.

If there’s another side to this story — and I think there is — it’s not as if the critics can be easily dismissed. For starters, there was his advice as White House counsel that the executive branch could somehow indefinitely incarcerate American citizens without bringing charges against them. What Constitution did this graduate of Harvard Law School read?”

“After a review driven by three brutal slayings, the state attorney general on Wednesday ordered New Jersey law enforcers to notify federal immigration officials whenever someone arrested for an indictable offense or drunken driving is found to be an illegal immigrant.

Attorney General Anne Milgram reviewed the states policy in light of the execution-style killings Aug. 4 of three Newark college students and the wounding of a fourth victim. One of the six suspects was an illegal immigrant who had been granted bail on child rape and aggravated assault charges without immigration officials being alerted to his existence.”

“Batista credits the instruction he received from Dr. Lynette Nadal, an English professor at Northwood University in West Palm Beach. For 17 years, Nadal has devoted much of her time to teaching Hispanic players English as a second language and working to improve their life skills.

“Before her, we had no one,” said Batista, 36, a former Weston and Wellington resident who lives in Miami. “I don’t know where the process would be without her. In the beginning, she taught enough English to understand baseball, but baseball is a world of signs. Most of what you do can be taught with signs.”

Nadal recognized that Hispanic players had a greater need for English than baseball.”

“Puerto Rico’s AIDS treatment program, hit by drug shortages in recent months, will be aggressively revamped to ensure patients in the U.S. territory receive medication without delays, the governor announced Tuesday.

The program aims to provide anti-retroviral drug therapy for thousands of HIV/AIDS sufferer but has faltered recently due to a forced rationing of free medicine for hundreds of patients. Advocates blame the shortages on mismanagement.

Taco truck owners in New Orleans, Louisiana are accusing local officials of singling out Hispanics after the City passed a law banning certain kinds of mobile food vendors. According to the Boston Globe, local politicians “have long turned a blind eye to whites and blacks peddling shrimp out of pickup trucks and snow cones on the street [but] recently outlawed the rolling Mexican kitchens, calling them an unwelcome reminder of what Hurricane Katrina brought.”

“The Virginia Department of Health has been using Spanish radio to encourage Hispanics living in Northern Virginia to get tested for HIV.

The $50,000 statewide advertising campaign coincides with National HIV Testing Day, a day to encourage people to learn their HIV status. The testing day, which was yesterday, was started in 1995 by the National Association of People With AIDS.”

MIAMI – Two presidential candidates have accepted the invitation of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision to participate in Spanish-language debates next fall, reports Spanish news service EFE in Diario Hoy. Univision, the number one Spanish-language TV broadcaster in the United States, proposed separate Democratic and Republican debates to air after Labor Day. They would feature simultaneous translation and center on immigration reform, according to EFE. Two Democrat candidates – New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut — accepted the invitation. Richardson and Dodd are the only two candidates who speak Spanish. On June 11, Sen. Dodd expressed regret over the lack of interest from other candidates. Latinos are the fastest growing segment of America’s population and the largest growing voting bloc, he says. He and other candidates have an “obligation” to speak on issues from immigration to education and health care, the senator says.